

{ 






















PROCEEDINGS AT A CONVENTION 


OF THE 

/ 

House and Senate of the State of Pennsylvania, 

* • A 

HELD FEBRUARY 15, 1877, 


WITH A 





PR 




F, WALTER 


State Director of Art Education for Massachusetts, 


OH 



“INDUSTRIAL ART EDUCATION, CONSIDERED ECONOMICALLY.” 

L&tettoflvapttcaUj) EeporteU.] 



BOSTON: 

PUBLISHED BY LOCKWOOD, BROOKS & CO. 

For the Pennsy Ivania Museum and School of Industrial Art. 





























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COPYRIGHT, 1877, 

BY 

Walteb Smith. 


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The meeting was called to order at eight o’clock, when 
His Excellency, Governor Hartranft, was selected to preside. 

GOVERNOR HARTRANFT: 


Gentlemen,—I have the honor of introducing a gentle¬ 
man, who has come a long way for the purpose of enlight¬ 
ening us upon what I believe to be a very important 
subject, and I have no doubt that all of you will agree 
with me, after he shall have finished. 

We all take great pride in speaking of the rich minerals 
of Pennsylvania, yet these minerals are of little value com¬ 
pared with the great amount of work represented in them, 
after they have assumed their shapeful use. Even the 
common labor represents, perhaps, more value than the 
mineral itself, and then, above all, the skilled labor, or, if 
you choose to term it, the Art labor, represents still more 
value. 

It is upon this subject of skilled labor, or Art labor, that 
we want to hear from this gentleman. Anything that can 
be done in our system of education to foster that, will cer¬ 
tainly result in very great advantage to our people. This 
gentleman is perhaps the best prepared upon this subject, 
to give us a true insight of its importance, and of its great 
value. 

I take pleasure in introducing to you Professor Walter 
Smith, from Massachusetts, State Director of Art Education 
in that State. 


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V 














SPEECH BY PROFESSOR WALTER SMITH, 


Before I address myself to the subject of my speech 
to-night, I ought to apologize for being here at all — and 
my apology is, that I am here, not of my own seeking, but 
upon the invitation of gentlemen residing in this State, 
who have asked me to speak to you on a question with 
which my whole professional life has been identified. 

INTRODUCTION. 

In doing so, I must preface what I have to say, by the 
statement that I am neither a lecturer nor a speaker, but 
a teacher; not perhaps wholly unaccustomed to express my 
thoughts in words, but entirely unused to address an au¬ 
dience like this, on a subject of so great importance. 

I must therefore claim your indulgence and forbearance, 
for all deficiencies in the manner of presenting this matter 
to you, and ask you to regard the views I may express, as 
those which the hardly-earned experiences of a teacher 
have developed. 

If I can suggest some thoughts new to you, on what is 
to me an old and familiar subject, it will be all I came to 
do, and all I can expect to accomplish. 

THE SUBJECT TO BE CONSIDERED. 

If I understand this matter rightly, you, as the Legisla¬ 
ture of the State of Pennsylvania, are asked to appropriate 



6 


INDUSTRIAL ART EDUCATION, 


a certain sum of money towards the support of the Penn¬ 
sylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art, which is to 
be located in Memorial Hall, at Philadelphia, and my task 
is to show you that this scheme is worthy of public support 
from an economical point of view. 

If I could only bring before you the array of facts 
bearing upon this view of the subject, which our experience 
of the last quarter of a century has accumulated, your 
opinions would soon be formed; but I can hardly be 
expected, at so short a notice and in so brief a time as that 
which I have to occupy, to do more than suggest. I shall 
endeavor to tell you the story of a hard-working practical 
man, familiar with the history of this matter of Industrial 
Art Education, through participation in it for a considerable 
time, and to lay before you the testimony of a witness to 
the events of which he speaks, rather than to address you 
with the plea of an advocate. 

I presumed to accept the invitation to address you on 
this matter, only because I have devoted the life which has 
been given to me in the earnest endeavor to understand it, 
and because all the work I have done has been, and all I 
ever expect to do in this world shall be, for the advance¬ 
ment of Art Education, as bearing on the development of 
taste and skill in the industries of the world. The subject 
upon which I have to speak, is the relative value of skilled 
and unskilled labor, and whether it is the duty of the State 
to use its influence for the development and cultivation of 
skilled labor, as a matter of economy. 

We know that all labor may be divided into two very 
distinct classes, the skilled and the unskilled, with this dif¬ 
ference in character, that unskilled labor is of very little 
comparative value, and is becoming of less and less value 
every day, while skilled labor is something of great value, 
and becoming of greater value every day. 

If we recognize economically the greater value of skilled 
labor, in comparison with unskilled, it seems to me we have 


CONSIDERED ECONOMICALLY. 


7 


taken the first step towards doing all in our power to make 
all labor skilled in the highest degree. 

THE VALUE OF SKILLED LABOR. 

In an industrial community, unskilled labor is always the 
most costly, and skilled labor the most profitable. 

The man who works in the mill, the artizan, and the 
mechanic in every occupation, who is unskilled, is an un¬ 
thrifty laborer; he occupies more time than is necessary 
with his work, and uses his materials in a wasteful manner, 
and ends by producing something of less value than he 
would produce if he were a skilled laborer. 

On the other hand, out of the same material from which 
the unskilled laborer produces an article of small value, the 
skilled mechanic produces one of great value, one for which 
he receives higher wages, from which his employers realize 
greater profit, and which is of greater intrinsic value to the 
public than the product of unskilled labor. 

To what extent is it for our material interest to see that 
unskilled shall be transformed into skilled labor ? 

In proportion as we are unable to introduce into our in¬ 
dustries that useful and necessary element of taste, which 
our education in other subjects demands, to that extent we 
are dependent upon other countries for what our taste re¬ 
quires. And thus we lose the profit of skilled labor at home, 
and throw away the power we might have over the other 
nations of the world, by our self-sustaining productiveness. 

If we regarded man as created simply for the application 
of physical force, if we considered him merely as a human 
animal, whose training is completed when he can strike a 
heavy blow, then there would be no need for many of the 
accepted branches of our present education, and none at all 
for Industrial Art Education. 

But the man who is simply a machine, of value only on 
account of the physical force he has, is a very inferior ani- 


INDUSTRIAL ART EDUCATION, 


mal altogether. The amount of physical force a man has is 
less than that of the donkey, and considerably less than that 
of the horse; and so treating man as an animal and nothing 
else, he is really a very inferior creature. But in propor¬ 
tion as we give him skill in Art he becomes a creature of 
power, superior to all others. 

An unskilled man is of little value to society; the skilled 
man is of great value. 

COMPARATIVE VALUE OF SKILLED AND UNSKILLED LABOR. 

We can see the value of skill more clearly by comparing 
what we can do in this country by means of the labor of 
a certain number of men, with that which can be done in 
other countries where great attention has been given to this 
subject of Industrial Art Education. 

I calculate that if we use up our man-power in the pro¬ 
duction of the raw material of the Industrial Arts only, it 
takes the labor of six men working without skill to produce 
the equivalent in value of one laborer working with skill; 
in other words, if the labor of six men is employed in 
mining coal, or getting iron as a raw material, or raising 
pork or corn or cotton or oil (and these are things which 
we produce and export), it will take the year’s work of the 
whole six to buy the year’s work of one skilled French 
workman. 

Now, if we could do without the labor of the skilled French 
workman, and without the industrial master-pieces imported 
so largely into this country, if we were in a condition 
of taste or education in which we could not appreciate or 
did not want them, and were content with a barbarous in¬ 
dustry, then the man who raises the corn or cotton would 
be the equal of the French bronzist. But we find our¬ 
selves in this position, that the general education of the 
country has been developed to such an extent, and so large 
a proportion of our citizens have travelled, and acquired a 


CONSIDERED ECONOMICALLY. 


9 


taste for the beautiful, that we must have these master¬ 
pieces. We are in this condition to-day, that many of us 
cannot help surrounding ourselves with objects of good 
taste; and as we cannot get them manufactured at home, 
we are compelled to import them from abroad 

This inflicts upon us the penalty of paying heavily and 
wastefully, for our want of industrial skill. For if we em¬ 
ploy six men in producing the raw material of Industrial 
Art for exportation, and in exchange import bronzes of equal 
value, which are the work of one man, then it is perfectly 
clear that, economically, we have six men on the debit side 
of the ledger, to one man on the credit side. We have to 
support five men, as a penalty for our want of skill, from 
whom we get nothing. 

LOSS TO OUR INDUSTRIES, BY IMPORTATION OF FOREIGN 
GOODS. 

This is not an ideal picture. 

I was comparing notes in the house of a friend and neigh¬ 
bor of mine, recently, upon this subject, and drew his atten¬ 
tion to the fact, that, in the room in which we were sitting, 
every costly piece of furniture, or decoration, was imported. 
The carpet, which perhaps cost a couple of hundred dol¬ 
lars, was an English carpet; the paper-hanging, which was 
a very handsome piece of manufacture, was French ; the 
bronzes and pottery on the mantel-piece, were German ; and 
we discovered that, in furnishing this room, directly the 
absolute necessaries of life had been supplied, such as the 
coal which was burned in the grate, and the hod in which 
it was contained, directly we got beyond these necessaries, 
into the luxuries or elegancies of life, we had to go abroad 
and get them. And what was the case in that one room, 
was the case in probably four other rooms in that house; 
and what was the case in that one house in the city of 
Boston, was the case to a much greater extent (for my 
friend was not a wealthy man), with five thousand other 


10 


INDUSTRIAL ART EDUCATION, 


houses in that one city; and what was the case with those 
five thousand houses in the city of Boston, would be the 
case in twenty thousand houses in Philadelphia, and in fifty 
thousand houses in Brooklyn and New York; in fact, in 
every city, town, or village, of every State, where there 
had been developed a taste and love for the beautiful. 

I would like to call your attention to the drain upon the 
resources of the country which this means. Calculate the 
expenditures upon these costly articles, in every elegantly 
furnished room in the United States, and what position 
does it place us in ? It seems to me, the position is that of 
being dependent for the elegancies of life upon foreign 
help, as much as the country was dependent at one time on 
foreign government. 

There are several kinds of independence. Independence 
in government is not the only kind. Just precisely to the 
extent that we find we must obtain from abroad for culti¬ 
vated persons, that which they require, and with which 
alone they will be satisfied, and are dependent on foreign 
countries for the supply, just to that extent, we have not 
yet achieved our independence. This is not a matter of cli¬ 
mate, but of skill. 

We should do well to remember that the natural pro¬ 
ducts of the earth, employed to satisfy man’s necessities, as¬ 
sume their most valuable and precious character when they 
are made the vehicles of his skill and taste in Science and 
Art. 

One faculty of the Almighty, the creative and origina¬ 
ting faculty, which is the motive power of all Art, has been 
withheld from all other creatures, and is graciously con¬ 
ferred upon mankind. In the possession of this creative in¬ 
stinct, man has been described as having been made in the 
image of God, an echo of His constructiveness, and display¬ 
ing under favorable conditions that love of the true and the 
beautiful which is the human reflection of divine powers. 

Do I claim too much for education in Art and Science? 


CONSIDERED ECONOMICALLY. 


11 


when I say that it will develop in the human race the di¬ 
vine faculty of creativeness ? No ; I claim not enough. 

There is as much true education of a moral and intellec¬ 
tual sort in the study of the phenomena of the physical 
world, and its echo in Art, as there is in studying the liter¬ 
ature, laws, or theology of dead races of men, — their dead 
languages, obsolete laws, exploded theologies, or the living 
representatives of the same existing at present, and des¬ 
tined to be superseded in their turn. 

And we recognize this in the world of fine Art, clinging 
tenaciously to the refining influences of great pictures, 
statues and buildings, and being educated by them. 

The aesthetic influence in education of the Greek marbles 
from the Parthenon, is as pronounced and as definite as that 
of Greek literature. 

The national treasures which a living people most faith¬ 
fully guard and are proudest of, are those in which Art has 
triumphantly culminated. 

Indeed Literature and Art seem to occupy an equal place 
in the hearts of the people, being even more permanent 
than the race which produces them, and sometimes becoming 
its true posterity, representing it to future ages, when 
all other signs of its existence have long since passed 
away. 

This human love of Art and Poetry, Longfellow ex¬ 
presses in his apostrophe to Nuremburg, the ancient Ger¬ 
man city: 

“Not thy Councils, not thy Kaisers, win for thee the world’s regard; 

But thy painter, Albrecht Durer, and Hans Sachs, thy cobbler bard.” 

It is somewhat significant, that Albert Durer was both a 
painter and a goldsmith, signing his pictures “goldsmith,” 
and his work in precious metals “painter,” showing that In¬ 
dustrial Art was not considered beneath the attention of 
one of the greatest of fine artists. 


12 


INDUSTRIAL ART EDUCATION, 


INDUSTRIAL SKILL AN ECONOMICAL MATTER. 

The whole drift of this matter is a question of economy, 
and whether we cannot do with our labor something better 
than we are doing, by increasing its skill, and so stop¬ 
ping these costly importations. I think that what I 
have already said to you, will show that this matter of 
Art Education is not a fanciful one. 

If it were a question of mere sentiment, or of sensuous 
enjoyment, I should think it hardly worth the attention 
that you propose to give it. If it were to be something 
like the drawing which used to be taught In our schools, a 
mere innocent, but useless amusement, I, for one, would 
have nothing to do with it, and it certainly would be be¬ 
neath your serious attention 

But it is not a matter of sentiment only, but strictly 
speaking, one rather of economy, affecting the prosperity 
of the country. We have to regard ourselves as in this 
position, that having inaugurated and developed a system 
of general education, which will compare favorably with 
that of any other country in the world, we have left out, or 
rather have never yet undertaken to add to it, this subject 
of technical, or special education, which general education 
should lead up to, and upon which the prosperity of every 
country is so closely dependent. 

I believe that we are to-day, the only civilized white peo¬ 
ple on the face of the earth, who have not taken up this 
question in the most serious manner, and given the greatest 
attention to it. 

Because this is so, and because we have neglected this 
important factor in education, we have been, and are now 
dependent on other countries for the elegancies of home 
life; and, looking at the matter as a question of dollars and 
cents, we have paid money, and are paying money away 
out of the country every day and every year, for that which 


CONSIDERED ECONOMICALLY. 


13 


we could just as well manufacture at home, and have the 
credit and profit of, for ourselves. 

HAS INDUSTRIAL ART EDUCATION SUCCEEDED ELSEWHERE ? — 
EXPERIENCE IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 

It is a curious and significant fact, that the wealthiest 
countries in Europe to-day are those which have paid the 
most attention to this subject of Industrial Art Education, 
and in which drawing forms a part of the education given 
in the common schools. 

The shock which the English nation felt concerning their 
national industrial position at the Exhibition in 1851, was 
followed by very decisive action on the part of the Govern¬ 
ment, and wisely so. 

I look forward to results following the International Ex¬ 
hibition here, in 1876, similar to those which followed the 
Exhibition of 1851 in England, and that of 1862 in France. 

It was shown in the Exhibition of 1851, that the tech¬ 
nical education of Great Britain, either did not exist, or 
was at fault; it was also shown, that applied skill in Indus¬ 
trial Art, had a trade value, was a matter not only asso¬ 
ciated with the sentiment, with the historical pride and 
patriotism of the country, but also closely related to its 
business prosperity. 

Whilst the raw material which was produced and exported 
to other countries was of comparatively little value, the 
imported objects were of great value. The balance of 
trade and profit was on the wrong side. 

And then was induced and formed a national conclusion, 
that deficiency in matters of taste, and art, and manufacture, 
was to be attributed to the non-existence of a scheme of 
national Art Education. 

Educators said this deficiency in taste arose from want of 
opportunities of education, rather than from national in¬ 
capacity ; and those who felt the economical bearing of the 


14 


INDUSTRIAL ART EDUCATION, 


matter, and they were principally the manufacturers, set 
the nation to work to provide a remedy for this thriftless 
industrial condition. 

PROVIDING A REMEDY.—ITS RESULTS. 

In doing this, the authorities went entirely contrary to 
all experience in such matters. 

Previously, when any country had endeavored to cultivate 
good taste, it would establish schools of Art and picture 
galleries, and these it was supposed would provide the 
remedy, and that out of these picture galleries and schools 
of Art, the designers for manufactured goods would come. 
That remedy had been tried before in England, from 1836 
to 1851, and had failed, and so, instead of continuing the old 
experiment, an entirely new departure was taken. Instead 
of again consulting the artists, the painters, and the sculp¬ 
tors of the time, upon whose advice, Schools of Design 
had been established, i. e. special schools for a few persons 
only, the English Government took counsel of the school 
teachers — the teachers of the common schools. It asked 
them what should be done to remove this want of taste among 
the people, which was alleged to be caused by a want of the 
opportunities of education in the principles of taste, for the 
public as well as the designers. The school teachers said 
that the only possible remedy was to educate all the people 
in drawing , the common basis of fine and Industrial Art. 
Instead of picking out a few persons who were supposed to 
be specially gifted, and teaching them in special schools, 
every child ought to have the opportunity of showing what 
ability was in him, and what skill he could acquire. 

This was put into practice, and after a short time the 
educators came to a new conclusion, entirely contrary to 
what had been previously held, and very contrary to the 
doctrines which had been taught and believed. It was dis 
covered that every child, intelligent enough to learn to 


CONSIDERED ECONOMICALLY. 


15 


write, could be taught to draw, and that every child who 
could be taught to draw, could be developed into a skilful 
designer, if he had the opportunity of education in the 
subject, and a sufficient amount of encouragement. 

That result established a principle, and put an entirely 
new phase upon the whole matter. People had been told 
that to draw and paint and design, instead of being a reason¬ 
able occupation to be acquired and pursued like any other, 
and by ordinary persons, was a sort of special gift of God, 
something that only the lucky few were entitled to, or ever 
received, and that the ability to produce works of Art, was 
something carefully guarded from average persons, con¬ 
cealed and hidden like the secrets of the Gnostics. Acting 
on this artistic and industrial superstition, the persons having 
charge of National Education in England, instead of teach¬ 
ing the masses of the people to draw, had taught only the 
few individuals supposed to be favored of Heaven, and 
came, as they deserved, to utter industrial grief. 

But the moment this opposite and sensible conclusion was 
arrived at, that all should be taught to develop their facul¬ 
ties of sight and expression, then those who had the greater 
ability began to go to the front, and those who before were 
thought to have no ability, were found to have considerable 
ability in the elements of Art. 

There can be no doubt from the common-sense point of 
view, that every healthy man is a possible artist, just as 
every intelligent man is possibly a literary man. 

It does not follow, of course, that every person we teach 
to write, or study English composition in the common 
schools, will become a distinguished composer; but it does 
follow, that every one who learns to write, will have ac¬ 
quired something of value to him in after life. 

From the moment this great act of justice was carried 
out, that there should not be a few special schools for spe¬ 
cial persons, but that every child should share equally in 
the advantages of this education in Art, it was found that 


16 


INDUSTRIAL ART EDUCATION, 


there were the capacities for Art, and the ability to design 
and draw, in all the people. 

So it will be with us here, when we are equally wise. 

CAN INDUSTRIAL ART SKILL BE DEVELOPED IN AMERICA ? 

I wish to speak now of the possibility of bringing this 
country forward to the same level of success in Industrial 
Art as that which obtains in other countries, such as Eng¬ 
land, France and Germany. 

I maintain that it is not only possible, but that it would 
be the inevitable result of such a scheme, if carried out, as 
the great measure of safety for this country, which you are 
now asked to inaugurate and support. We have stood still 
long enough, hiding our talents in a napkin, and being de¬ 
ceived with the story that success in Art was not our inher¬ 
itance. 

To stand still at the present day, means going behind, 
for other people are progressing; and if we stand still 
amidst universal progress, we must inevitably drift to the 
rear. Stagnation, in this progressive age, is retrogression. 

WHAT HAS BEEN DONE IN MASSACHUSETTS. 

Now let me say a word about our experience in Massa¬ 
chusetts, in this matter. 

It was looked upon as an artistic heresy, when the School 
Committee of Boston and the State Board of Education tried 
to remedy this want of taste, and want of skilled labor in 
that city and State, by teaching the children to draw. 

But it was no experiment to determine that we could do 
there what had been successfully done elsewhere. We tried 
our hands on nearly fifty thousand public school children, 
and we found not one was unable to learn to draw and 
design with skill, if he was intelligently and sensibly taught; 
and we have solved this new question also, about which 


CONSIDERED ECONOMICALLY. 


17 


there had been great differences of opinion, and the wildest 
statements of theorists, that instead of its being an impos¬ 
sibility to teach persons to design, we find children in the 
public schools may all become excellent designers. I have 
no hesitation in saying that as good designs have been 
produced in the public schools, the High and Grammar 
Schools of the City of Boston, as are turned out of an 
average designing room in any factory. It was thought to 
be impossible to teach designing. This was urged and 
believed by people who ought to have known better, only 
a few years ago. We have disproved the theory. 

There can be no doubt, since this trial, that the rank 
and file in the Boston Public Schools are taught to design ; 
and not only that, but to produce very beautiful and original 
designs. In fact, the difficulty in teaching children to design, 
is not to produce but to curb originality; for some of the 
designs produced are fearfully original. 

The question, however, which we wished to solve was, not 
whether the highest class of designs could be produced by 
public school children, for none of us believed that, but 
whether the faculty of designing was in existence in all 
human creatures; and we solved it in the affirmative. 

I hold that every child who undertakes to make that 
modified form of sculpture called a mud-pie, shows a faculty 
for designing. The only question to be decided now is, 
whether the faculty is of practical value and ought to be 
exercised. 

Let us look at the general bearings of this phase of the 
question. 

I say that the commencement of any system of public 
instruction in Industrial Art, is to give the children a sound 
education in drawing, and thereby an opportunity of de¬ 
veloping what skill and taste are in them. There will 
then be found here, as elsewhere, a great deal of what has 
never been supposed to exist in the capacity of every child 
— the originating, or creative faculty. 

2 


18 


INDUSTRIAL ART EDUCATION, 


I would here enter my protest against all tricks and spe¬ 
cifics for teaching drawing. I am no believer in the doctrine 
that the experience of the human race can be formulated or 
monopolized by any one individual. 

Light in Art, as in every other subject, is manifested to 
us gradually, as we are able to bear it, not by a sudden rev¬ 
elation, which would destroy our dim perceptions; and a 
man might just as well lay claim to be a comet, as to be 
the originator of any complete system of education. He 
only tabulates with less or greater skill the experience of 
the past, and adds a little of his own. 

The foulest accusation which has been brought against 
myself, individually, is that I have invented a system of 
drawing; and miserable book agents worry the innocent 
persons who find themselves by no fault of their own on 
School Committees, with the statement that my system is a 
revelation. I am sorry for all the persons concerned in this 
persecution, either passively or actively, for both are 
equally to be pitied. I lay claim to no such invention. 

I do not feel responsible for this horrible persecution, 
because all I have done has been to try to destroy the delu¬ 
sion which represented the creative, or originating faculty, 
as being the monopoly of a few individuals. 

Every man has his mission, and if I can destroy the be¬ 
lief that some men are created by a just God to become His 
interpreters of the beautiful, whilst others are destined to 
be born blind like kittens and puppies, and, unlike those 
interesting quadrupeds, remain blind all their lives, and 
until they die, then I shall feel that I have done one man’s 
work, and die happily when my time comes. 

IS INDUSTRIAL ART EDUCATION WORTH ITS COST?—• VALUE 

AND INFLUENCE OF THE SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM. 

Now comes the question of whether it is worth while to 
establish a system of Art Education, such as is contemplated 
in this new museum and school. 


CONSIDERED ECONOMICALLY. 


19 


Not only is it possible, but it seems to me the experience 
of other countries shows it to be an industrial necessity, 
and also in the highest degree economical. 

From that year, 1851, when so wonderful a lesson was 
given to and learned by Great Britain, the Government set 
to work doing exactly what has been done here by private 
enterprise in this State, in relation to the late Exhibition. 
The Government voted a sum of fifty thousand dollars, to 
purchase a few industrial master-pieces from the first In¬ 
ternational Exhibition. 

I very well remember being in the court-yard of the 
house in which the Prince of Wales at present lives — 
Marlborough House — then the headquarters of the Gov¬ 
ernment Department of Science and Art, in which I studied 
for ten short years, and seeing the future South Kensing¬ 
ton Museum drawn into the court-yard in a single wagon. 
That wagon-load of goods has had more influence upon 
Ihe destinies of the United Kingdom than the existence 
of her fleet. That wagon-load of goods has grown into 
the present South Kensington Museum. 

Year by year, the Government has voted grants, and pur¬ 
chased the best works of Ancient and Modern Industrial 
Art to be found in the world, and the collection has so 
grown, that to-day it is the largest and most important 
Industrial Art Museum in the world. 

This has not been done without opposition from some. 

Now and then, some member of Parliament whose in¬ 
stincts and talents were devoted especially to a blind econ¬ 
omy, who looked upon all such things as Art Museums as 
if they were toys, because he was incapable of seeing their 
influence on manufacture, and consequently on trade, would 
rise in the House of Commons and protest against this ex¬ 
penditure. 

Yearly, large grants were made, until I am almost afraid 
to tell you what amount of money has been expended on 
that Museum. 


20 


INDUSTRIAL ART EDUCATION, 


But when the question was seriously raised in the House 
of Commons, as to whether the museum of industrial mas¬ 
terpieces was worth what it had cost, a very significant 
commentary on this question was made. A gentleman who 
was intimately associated with it, said, “If the country 
regrets its bargain, if the country does not think it has 
got its money's worth, then I am prepared to say, on the 
faith of men who will stand by me in this matter, that we 
will form a corporation, and purchase every object of Indus¬ 
trial Art in that collection, will pay the country what it 
cost, pay interest and compound interest into the bargain, 
and take the collection off the nation's hands.” 

Since that time very little has been heard about selling 
the museum. 

The investment in that direction has been so profit¬ 
able to the nation as bearing on the development of her 
Art Industries, that I verily believe to-day if you were 
seriously to propose in England the sale of South Kensing¬ 
ton Museum, you could sooner get the country to agree to 
sell its fleet to Russia or to France, than to dispose of its 
Industrial Museum. 

BEGINNING THE SAME WORK IN PENNSYLVANIA. 

The commencement I have to-day seen in this State of a 
similar museum, is a far more comprehensive and important 
beginning than the South Kensington Museum was in 1852 ; 
much more comprehensive, and bearing directly and prac¬ 
tically upon the industries of this State and country. 

It seems to me that by commencing in this way, and util¬ 
izing the experience of other countries in forming a mu¬ 
seum of Industrial Art—not a museum of fine art for lux¬ 
ury or sentimental enjoyment, but a museum which shall 
be to the industries of this country what the granary is to 
the husbandman, containing the seeds of future prosperity 
— the State is doing a profoundly wise thing. Having also 


CONSIDERED ECONOMICALLY. 


21 


the experience of other countries as a guide in establishing 
a school of Industrial Art, it is doing precisely the other 
necessary thing for making the whole scheme a grand 
success. 

The museum without the school would be of little in¬ 
fluence, and the school without the museum would be 
crippled. Teachers must be trained if the public is to be 
influenced, and so a Normal class is to be formed in the 
new school. 

It is quite a delusion to suppose that an ornamentist, or 
designer, requires a less thorough education in all the 
branches of Art study than the painter or sculptor. The de¬ 
signer has the same need of hard study and long practice 
in Art as the painter of pictures; his education should 
cover as much ground, and be given by as skilful instructors. 

It is equally a delusion to suppose, that if a man turns 
out a failure as a painter he can be successfully employed 
as a teacher. You cannot make a first-rate teacher out of 
a third-rate artist, and, indeed, you may employ some scores 
of first-rate artists before you will find even so good as a 
second-rate teacher among them; because to know how to 
teach necessitates the training for it as an occupation, 
which artists have rarely had. 

It may be profoundly true, that “ the poet is born, not 
made,” though I never believed more than the first half of 
that statement, and that half is true also about the designer 
and the teacher; they must be born before they can be¬ 
come anything. But the latter half is profoundly untrue, 
applied to them. They are not natural products, but man¬ 
ufactured articles, and the records of our Normal schools 
show, that even with the best opportunities and implements 
of education, only a small proportion of students who desire 
to become teachers ever attain to the position of first-rate 
instructors. 

The Normal schools do their best, but the material is not 
always good enough for them to turn out first-rate work- 


22 


INDUSTRIAL ART EDUCATION, 


manship in every case. No, the designer and teacher are 
made after they are born; first, by long and patient study, 
and then by weary years of hard work in their professions, 
acquiring skill and testing theories, and storing up the re¬ 
sults of their labors and observations, until, in their maturity, 
they ripen into wisdom and fruitful service. The process 
by which they are made is slow, and cannot be hurried, 
and the road on which they travel toward perfection is a 
long one, beginning at the gate of birth and ending at the 
gate of death, with no halting place between. 

Some of the want of success in France and England, 
which followed instruction in Art, arose from the fact that 
there were no competent instructors. It was found that 
the employment of painters and sculptors and architects, 
in the great work of Industrial Art Education, was not al¬ 
ways a success. 

Therefore, it was necessary to establish a training-school; 
a school in which teachers could be taught; and taught the 
fundamental principles of good Industrial Art, and in¬ 
structed how to teach them, in connection with these great 
national museums. 

I understand that is precisely what is proposed to be 
done in this State, in the Pennsylvania Museum and School 
of Industrial Art; and the question has been raised, whether 
the same work can be done in any other way than by the 
Legislative action which represents the public interests of 
the State; whether, if you recognize that the industries of 
this country want some new spirit infused into them, and 
if you decide that such an infusion of skill and taste into 
them is desirable, and would be profitable, it could be done, 
or would be done, without public interference and public 
patronage. 

As a matter of fact, it never has been done anywhere 
else except by the public, through the action of govern- 
ments. 

The interests involved in the general elevation of the 


CONSIDERED ECONOMICALLY. 


23 


manufactures of the whole country, are public and not 
private. The private manufacturer may undertake to do 
something in improving his specialty, from which he would 
receive advantages; but he would require to have a mo¬ 
nopoly of these advantages. In such a case, a great improve¬ 
ment might result in a single branch of Art, without public 
patronage ; hut the improvement would be limited, and, 
having no other foundation than private interest, would 
probably be short-lived, and thus be no permanent remedy 
for lack of general industrial skill. This movement is for 
the whole people rather than for a few, which shows it to 
be entitled to public support. 

Full as the project is with matters of grave import to the 
general industries of the State and even country, the con¬ 
duct of this enterprise should not be left to casual benev¬ 
olence, or be allowed to rely on private management. The 
interests at stake are of too great a magnitude for the public 
to allow its technical education to become the subject of 
crotchety experiments, as it would be in the hands of pri¬ 
vate persons, however well intentioned they might be. 

The constitution of the corporate body which to-day 
applies to you for public support, is framed with such prac¬ 
tical wisdom, and necessitates the ex-officio membership of 
so many prominent elected officials of the State, or the 
great cities, that the objects of the institution must inevita¬ 
bly be public from first to last. 

VALUE OF PUBLIC SUPERVISION. 

Another consideration is, that a general movement such as 
this, requires the fostering hand and intelligent direction 
and supervision of the public itself. There should be on 
public grounds a right to interfere if the scheme goes wrong; 
and there can be no question that the character which will 
be given to such a museum as this, by the support of the 
Legislature, and, to a certain extent, by the control of the 


24 INDUSTRIAL ART EDUCATION, 

Legislature, would be a very valuable one in the estimation 
of the public. 

This is one of the enterprises which cannot be left to 
charity, nor ought it to be dependent upon the patronage 
of the benevolent. 

It should be carried out, if at all, as a matter of public 
improvement, addressing itself to public needs. 

If I understand the matter, what this Legislature is asked 
to do towards the enterprise, is really to add the keystone 
to the arch ; the arch that has been built by the great 
Centennial and International Exhibition of 1876, and by 
the far-seeing practical people who have taken advantage 
of it. 

THE NEED OF INDUSTRIAL ART EDUCATION, GENERAL. 

The good to be done is not only so public for the State, 
but so public and. generally needed for the whole country, 
that if you take this matter up seriously in the State of 
Pennsylvania, you can hardly prevent some of the good ex¬ 
tending to other places. If it were your selfish wish to 
prevent such a result, you could hardly do so. 

There can in any case be only a few centres of this high¬ 
est form of technical instruction, such as Pennsylvania, 
Massachusetts, New York, and a few other Industrial centres. 

But I do not suppose it would influence you much against 
the scheme, if such a result were to occur, that some of the 
good done in Pennsylvania, some of the skill developed 
here, should find its way outside, overflowing Pennsylvania, 
into neighboring States. For you may depend upon it that 
will be the case. 

Even with our limited experience in Massachusetts, the 
students trained for teaching in the Normal Art School are 
already giving instruction in nearly twenty States of this 
Union, as well as in some of the British Provinces. 

There will be the same result here; and I hardly think 


CONSIDERED ECONOMICALLY. 


25 


this is much to be regretted, seeing how much we owe to 
other parts of the world which we can never pay. 

FRENCH INDUSTRIAL SKILL. 

If we look for an explanation of the superiority of 
French manufactures, we find in every city of any consider, 
able size in France, a School of Art and a Museum of Art. 

The skilled workmen are educated there, trained there to 
a love of the beautiful, and to learn from experience that 
this Art Education is not only an enjoyable thing, but a 
profitable thing in their education and training for useful 
lives as citizens; and it seems impossible that we should 
ever arrive at successful manufactures here, until we have 
similar agencies of improvement. So that in every city of 
importance, there should be technical education added to 
the system of general education. 

In every capital city of a State, there should be a Museum 
of Art, and an Industrial Art School to train designers and 
teachers. 

NUMBER OF CENTRAL EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS LIMITED. 

Such a grand museum as that to be established in Memo¬ 
rial Hall will be one of a few in the whole country. I 
should not be surprised if in these United States they were 
as far apart as are the different capitals of European coun¬ 
tries. 

The people will have to come to them, for such museums 
cannot exist in every man’s household; and it would be un¬ 
wise to try to multiply such central museums to a great ex¬ 
tent, because the supply of pictures and works of the great 
industrial masters is, to a definite and certain extent, limited. 

In every picture gallery of a comprehensive kind there 
must be, of necessity, works of the old masters, and we 
should recognize at once that the supply of pictures by the 
old masters is limited. 


26 


INDUSTRIAL ART EDUCATION, 


I dare say you will have observed, as a general thing, 
that when people have been dead for two or three hundred 
years, and therefore have retired from active business, their 
productive powers are somewhat curtailed, so that they are 
not in the habit of producing a great number of works ; 
and that happens to be the case with the producers of the 
old pictures, and also with the old industrial masters. 
Though you have to-day, in the Exhibition at Philadelphia, 
a great many magnificent specimens of industrial master¬ 
pieces, as well as of modern artistic designs, yet the supply 
of ancient workmanship is, and must be, limited. 

It will be possible, therefore, to have such important mu¬ 
seums in only a few great centres of industry. It may be 
advisable, at some future time, to have the two great de¬ 
partments of technical education in Art and Science divided, 
and the educational patronage of the State should be equally 
bestowed on different localities. 

THE WORK PROPOSED IN PHILADELPHIA. 

As far as I can see, the project now to be considered is 
that proposed in Philadelphia, which takes up especially the 
branch of Art as applied to industry. But quite equally 
important is the application of science to industry, and it 
may be advisable at some future time to do for science in 
some such city as Pittsburgh, what is now proposed to be 
done for Art in Philadelphia. 

This is not so necessary at present, because the position 
already taken by this country in the field of practical 
Science is so high that there is hardly much need for 
improvement. 

In regard to the other matter, practical Art, any intel¬ 
ligent observer going through the collections of the differ¬ 
ent nations exhibited in the Centennial display, must have 
seen that in the application of taste to industry this country 
was behind. Yet, if we consider carefully the relative im- 


CONSIDERED ECONOMICALLY. 


27 


portance and bearing of taste upon industry, in comparison 
with mere labor, we shall see that it is a profitable thing. 
A design, for instance, put into a woven fabric, oftentimes 
very largely increases its value, as Governor Hartranft very 
truly remarked in his introductory speech. A design put 
into rough material is sometimes the principal element of 
value, and although the labor and the cost of manufacture 
will be the same in an untasteful product as in a skilled 
product, the difference between good and bad taste in the 
completed article is that which in many cases decides its 
value in the market. 

THE VALUE OF TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 

You are asked to take the initiative of establishing in this 
country a system of technical education for the working¬ 
man, and it seems to me a measure of justice. 

All the professions have their colleges and universities, 
and a great deal of private munificence and public munifi¬ 
cence has been displayed toward the education of lawyers, 
doctors and theologians. 

A boy, when he graduates from a grammar school, is 
not considered fit either to physic us, or to preach to us, or 
to make contracts for us. He has only learned the ma¬ 
chinery employed in education, but is not educated. To 
be properly educated, he is sent to a technical school, in which, 
if he wishes to carve us with professional skill, or to pre¬ 
scribe for us scientifically and in regular order, he learns 
the practice of surgery and the nature of physic; and if he 
wishes to lead us to Heaven he is sent to a theological 
school, and there studies carefully the meaning and influence 
of religion, and the points of similarity and difference be¬ 
tween the creeds of sects and the various doctrines of 
theology. So we may say that all the professions at the 
present time have opportunities for technical education. 

But what assistance has the artisan or mechanic ? What 


28 


INDUSTRIAL ART EDUCATION, 


are his chances to obtain skill in his work ? What are his 
opportunities of getting such an amount of skill in his pro¬ 
fession that he can produce work which is equal to similar 
work done in other countries ? As far as I can see, none. 
The carpenter, and stone-mason, and cabinet-maker, the 
fresco-painter, the weaver, the designer, when he has com¬ 
pleted his education in the grammar school, or the high 
school (in which, at the present time, he is taught little 
else than the elements of literature and mathematics), then 
has to begin life with sight only half trained, and the power 
of expression, applied to the physical world, undeveloped. 

Yet the man who is unable to obtain in his own country, 
an education such as he can obtain in other countries of the 
world, is defrauded of his just rights. 

What is the penalty, and who pays it ? 

The country pays the greatest penalty in having to sup¬ 
port a race of men without skill. 

The penalty the workman pays, is that he has to work 
all his life for considerably less money than the imported 
foreign laborer. 

THE IMPORTATION OF FOREIGN SKILLED LABOR. 

It is at the present time a fact, that if you go into the 
designing rooms of the majority of the manufactories of 
this country, you will find that most of the highly paid men 
are foreigners. 

I have lived through that period in England. When I 
was a boy there, nearly every highly paid man in the 
designing room or in the highest workshop was a foreigner, 
and natives had to work for less money. 

The remedy for that was found in doing precisely what 
you are asked to do now. To-day you can find hardly any 
foreigners at the head of the designing rooms in England. 
You may occasionally find a foreign workman, because the 
country is free to all; but it is the exception, where before 


CONSIDERED ECONOMICALLY. 


29 


it was the rule; and there is not that general employ¬ 
ment of foreign skilled labor that was common in 
England five-and-twenty years ago. At that time, so in¬ 
efficient was the education of our workmen, and artisans, 
and mechanics, that they had to go without work when 
great skill was required, or take half the wages that the 
foreigners could easily earn. 

It is also the fact, that if you go to-day into the mills of 
Lowell, Massachusetts, nearly every highly paid designer is 
a foreigner. • 

I have out-lived that condition of things in England, and 
by the blessing of God I mean to out-live it here. 

IS THIS STATE OF THINGS PROFITABLE ? 

Now let me ask you if there is any particular advantage 
in this state of things, any profit in it, or any credit in it ? 

Do we discharge our duty to the majority of our citizens, 
those employed in the productive and constructive indus¬ 
tries, when we neglect to give them those opportunities of 
acquiring skill and power which in other countries they are 
provided with ? 

Is it not as important for us that we should prepare the 
man for his actual occupation in life, as to prepare him, by 
a system of general elementary education, reading, writing 
and arithmetic, for the intelligent discharge of his social 
duties ? 

I wish to reiterate the statement, and emphasize it in the 
strongest way that I can, that technical education bears 
very directly on the prosperity of a country. 

It is not a trivial matter, it is one which we ought to re¬ 
gard, just as the farmer regards his business at seed-time. 
He does not ask himself the question, Can I afford to buy 
the seed with which to cultivate my farm? He does ask 
himself whether he can afford to be without the harvest. 

It is a very serious business, for through the whole indus- 


30 


INDUSTRIAL ART EDUCATION, 


try of this country we are wasting much valuable material, 
and producing comparatively valueless articles. 

It is disagreeable to have to acknowledge the fact, but it 
is the fact, and if we do not like it let us remedy it. 

The question is, Are we using the labor we have, in the 
most economical and the most profitable manner ? Those 
who looked with the eyes of travelled persons upon the 
comparative displays in the late Exhibition, must have come 
to the conclusion that we are doing a wasteful thing in not 
utilizing the skill which is lying dormant, awaiting devel¬ 
opment in all our fellow-citizens. 

I came to this country myself, because, on a short visit, 
I saw the opportunity of using the system of general educa¬ 
tion, which is more fully organized here than I have ever 
seen it in any other country, to forward and develop the 
cause of Industrial Art Education. 

I saw that when the country turned its serious attention 
to the matter of Industrial Art, and recognized its econom¬ 
ical interests in this direction, there would be found the 
means here of doing this great work far more efficiently 
than in many other countries of the world. 

This is my belief, and the foundation for my belief is, 
that it is necessary for success in all the higher branches of 
education, to have good elementary education as a basis. 

The average American mechanic is not content to do for 
us as the Chinaman does, simply make a copy of other peo¬ 
ple s work, but likes to work with his intelligence as well; 
and we have here all this capacity and all this ability, wait¬ 
ing to be developed, but now utterly wasted. 

We are letting it run to waste, economically and morally. 
It is clear that the workman who could earn double the 
wages, if he were educated, that he earns now in an unedu¬ 
cated state, has a claim against society for leaving him in 
that condition. It is clear, if he has powers in him to make 
his labor of twice the value to himself and society, and is 
left unable to do so, that one half of his power is running to 


CONSIDERED ECONOMICALLY. 


31 


waste, and half of his life is thrown away. This is precisely 
the case with American mechanics in every branch of indus¬ 
try requiring Art knowledge and skill. 

THE PRODUCTIVE AND DISTRIBUTED INDUSTRIES.—DIGNITY 
OF LABOR. 

It is a common subject of complaint, I see it frequently 
noticed in Governors’ messages, in the speeches of states¬ 
men, in lectures by economists and articles written by 
editors, that the tendency of the youth of the country, 
when seeking employment, is towards warehouse work and 
office work, and not towards work in the productive indus¬ 
tries. It is very easy to account for that. There is no 
public provision for thorough education in Industrial Art 
and Science, to fit people to take a high position among 
those engaged in the productive industries. 

You cannot remedy this by preaching about the dignity 
of labor. Labor of itself, employment of physical force 
without skill, has no dignity. As a matter of fact, we are 
told it is only the outworking of a curse. “ Cursed is the 
ground for thy sake. In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou 
eat bread.” 

The stroke of a man’s arm, without the direction of his 
intelligence, is no more dignified than the kick of a mule. 

When a man takes a hammer and breaks up stones into 
small pieces*to mend the road with, he may be doing a very 
useful thing, he is certainly laboring, but there is no dignity 
in his labor. Why? The answer is that he is only ex¬ 
pending brute force for a physical necessity, which a judi¬ 
cious use of a little water and a little coal, put in a state 
of combustion in a vessel of iron, as a working machine, 
would do infinitely better and quicker than the man could. 
Yet we should never preach about the dignity of a Marsden’s 
stone-breaker, and a man who does the same work, not 
quite so well, is no more dignified than the machine he 
unsuccessfully competes with and imperfectly imitates. 


32 


INDUSTRIAL ART EDUCATION, 


But if instead of breaking stones with a hammer for a 
merely useful purpose he employs a mallet and chisel to 
carve a statue, as Michael Angelo sculptured the statue of 
David, making his labor the mere hand-maid of his educated 
brains, then is produced such a revelation of beauty and 
grandeur, that the labor expended on it may rightly be 
called dignified. 

If you want young people to believe that labor is 
dignified, and that they should be attracted to it on that 
account, make their labor somewhat different from that 
performed by the ox or the mule. Put skill into it; put 
taste into it. That is what makes labor dignified—the in¬ 
fusion into it of brain, and soul, and taste; and you will 
find that in all those branches of labor which display these 
characteristics, there are both the harvest ready, and the 
laborers not a few. Michael Angelo’s labor was dignified, 
because it was the expression of the immortal soul of a man 
whose spirit was in harmony with that of his Creator. 

It was the labor of that part of a man which will never die. 
Such labor is always dignified. But the employment of 
mere force, the work of a body, human or brutal (which is 
only earth made vital for a short time), has no dignity in it, 
and such labor is no more attractive to human beings as an 
occupation than any other employment of power, such as 
the whistling of the steam engine, or the hauling power of 
the locomotive. 

To make labor dignified, we must make it attractive by 
infusing into it skill, the peculiar human feature of labor, 
and then human beings will find delight in it, and be no 
more ashamed to be described as working men, than the 
sun is ashamed to shine, or the trees too bashful to grow. 

If we do this, we need not ask ourselves how young men 
can be induced to take up the great work of productive in¬ 
dustry. It is undoubtedly the case, that the number of our 
people engaged in the distribution of industry is out of all 
proportion to those engaged in its production; and only 


CONSIDERED ECONOMICALLY. 


33 


partly because selling and distributing is considered to be 
more profitable than producing. 

There must come a time when the resources of this coun¬ 
try will have to be utilized in as profitable a way as in other 
countries, or it will become poorer every day. 

We were idiotic enough at one time to believe that our 
Anglo-Saxon race had none of the artistic instinct in it. 
We have disproved that indecent assumption, yet it is a 
fact that, to-day, we send across the Atlantic for that which 
delights our eyes, in the shape of pictures, bronzes or car¬ 
pets, because we cannot get them made here with the skill 
that is necessary to satisfy our educated tastes. All this 
time we are exactly like the man who is walking over a 
coal-field or oil-well, in search of something, stumbling by 
the glimmer of a farthing rush-light, when beneath his feet 
there is untold wealth of light waiting to be used, when he 
is intelligent enough to find it. 

AMERICAN GENIUS IN EDUCATION AND INVENTION. 

I wish to testify as a professional teacher, and as one who 
has had great opportunities for observation, that, if there is 
one specialty developed in the American section of the 
English race, it is a genius for education and construction, 
which includes a genius for designing. It has been de¬ 
veloped here in the direction of Science rather than of Art, 
because the great need of the country has been a saving of 
labor; and so you might have observed that the great 
strength of the American department in the Philadelphia 
exhibition was in labor-saving apparatus, and in inventions 
by which work could be done, material forces employed 
skilfully to save the expenditure of human strength. The 
same faculty of invention underlies all success in Art, and 
therefore all that we have to do to unfold the artistic phase 
of this organic instinct, and to take advantage of it, is to 
give an opportunity for its development. 

3 


34 


INDUSTRIAL ART EDUCATION, 


I look forward to the time when, if the proper agencies 
are employed to bring it about, this country shall take just 
as high a rank in practical Art as it already does in practical 
Science, and with great profit to the whole country. 

Let me ask you this one question. If we could put an end 
to the present wholesale importation of high-priced foreign 
goods, would that not be a great advantage to the whole 
country ? If we could produce here in this State, in our 
own country, precisely what it costs the United States 
millions to import, and if we could keep these millions at 
home, would not the whole country be the richer? Would 
there not be a good deal more credit and self-respect in thus 
ministering to our own refined necessities, than in simply 
being our own day laborers, and looking to foreign countries 
for refinement ? 

PATRIOTIC ASPECT OF THE QUESTION. 

I treat the matter therefore as one which, whilst it bears 
directly upon the economy of the country, has an indirect 
bearing upon the independence and patriotism of the country. 
For I see no difference whatever between being obliged to 
take the government and laws of another country, and being 
compelled to take the manufactures of another country. 

It is a loss of independence and a confession of inferiority 
in both cases, and has to be remedied in the same way, by 
achieving our independence and doing the work for our¬ 
selves. 

THE FAILURE OF PROTECTION TO PROTECT. 

We cannot protect ourselves entirely from this payment 
of blackmail to nations who are our superiors in skill, as an 
acknowledgment of our inferiority, even by protective laws, 
because the men or the nations possessing the greatest skill 
will always be masters of the situation. We find that in the 


CONSIDERED ECONOMICALLY. 


35 


face of protection, here are the foreign goods, and there can 
be no doubt that if we were as wise as other nations, and 
cultivated the designing and creative faculties as they do, 
the importation of foreign goods would be abolished, and we 
could produce for ourselves the works which involve taste. 

I claim that we can produce them. It is not long since 
the first piece of manufactured goods made from a design by 
a pupil of the public drawing classes in the city of Lowell, 
Massachusetts, was put into the market on sale. 

I believe up to that time there had not been one piece of 
goods manufactured in the Lowell mills from designs of per¬ 
sons taught to design in Lowell. But through some such 
work as that you are asked to do here, a native talent is being 
developed, and instead of having people come to our shores 
to design for us, and instead of sending sixty thousand dol¬ 
lars a year abroad for designs which we fancy we are unable 
to make for ourselves (as a manufacturer told me in Lowell 
they did every year), our manufacturers will have the de¬ 
signs made at their own doors, suiting the taste of the people 
infinitely better than imported designs. We have to face this 
fact, that we require objects of Industrial Art, and at the 
present time our production is limited to the extent of our 
skill, while our taste is such, by education and study, that we 
require something better than we can produce. Supplying 
that something better than we can produce, impoverishes 
us; yet we must have these objects which minister to the 
enjoyment of our existence, and therefore it becomes an 
economical question as to whether we can supply them for 
ourselves. I claim we can supply them as well as we can im¬ 
port them, or even better, if we relinquish our dreaming 
and become practical men. 

THE TRUE PROTECTION IS INCREASE OF SKILL, NOT RAISING 
THE TARIFF. 

When you are asked as a Legislature to support this 
movement, you are asked to do precisely what England did 


36 


INDUSTRIAL ART EDUCATION, 


after the great Exhibition of 1851, which resulted in such 
an increase of manufactures, that the value of its exports 
doubled in ten years afterwards, not in the number of ar¬ 
ticles exported, but in the value of the exports. 

That was such a change that France, which had relied 
upon its old schools of Art and its picture galleries, had to 
go over to England and examine what was being done 
there, and adopt the same scheme of Art Education. What 
was done in England as a remedial measure, is being now 
partly done in the schools of France, but not so well as it 
might be. 

What you are asked to do is, therefore, not to try an 
experiment, but to apply a well tested plan; not to risk your 
money in working out theories, but to save your industries 
from foreign aggression and usurpation, by a practical rem¬ 
edy. You must plant in the schools what you want to grow 
in the workshops. 

If I have only made you see that skilled labor is of prac¬ 
tical value, and that we have the means of producing it, 
and that it is a matter which affects the economy and 
prosperity of the country, that it is possible for us to pro¬ 
vide a remedy for our incapacity at once, and in the way 
in which you are asked to provide it, I shall have done 
something. 

FAVORABLE CONDITIONS FOR REMEDIAL MEASURES. 

But I would like to add this, that you have here all the 
conditions favorable to success in such an undertaking. 
I have never seen in any country conditions more favor¬ 
able. 

Beginning with the excellent collection of works of Indus¬ 
trial Art and Education now being exhibited in Philadelphia, 
with the possession of a capacious building, very superior 
to those in which this experiment has been commenced in 
other countries, and with a public need of improvement 


CONSIDERED ECONOMICALLY. 


37 


which is recognized and felt by all, it seems to me you have 
more than half won the battle before the engagement has 
begun. This Centennial Exhibition must result here, as 
similar exhibitions have resulted in England, in France and 
in Austria, in the advancement of every branch of Indus¬ 
trial Art, through the establishment of sound education in 
the subject. 

There was a. time when every branch of Industrial Art in 
England was a miserable, incompetent thing, but that time 
has passed away. You have seen during this last year the 
relative position of the industries of that country as com¬ 
pared with those of other countries in the world. The best 
and most impartial critics say that Great Britain leads the 
world in practical industry, and they are right. This su¬ 
periority has been brought about in one way, and that 
way is what you are asked to support here to-day ; to create 
a centre from which shall emanate good taste and good 
education, to provide it in such a practical way, that every 
man who is interested in the prosperity of his country and 
the progress of his race, shall be ready to support it as a 
necessary and inevitable measure of industrial safety. It is 
not a question of what we shall do to enjoy ourselves, but 
what we shall do to be saved! Shall we do it to save our 
industries? They cannot remain in their present position 
without drifting behind more hopelessly than ever in com¬ 
petition with foreign goods, and they must not be allowed 
to drift behind, if we can help it, — and we can. 

THE WORK DONE IN PHILADELPHIA SO FAR IS RIGHT. 

Allow me to say before concluding, that I am here to-night 
as a practical man to bear my testimony to the wisdom of what 
has already been done in this great Pennsylvanian enterprise, 
and I say that you have done what has been done in the right 
way, and heartily wish you God speed! You are not en¬ 
gaged in an experiment, but in a great national work; a 


38 


INDUSTRIAL ART EDUCATION, 


work which must have the sympathy of every man who is 
anxious for and proud of his country. 

You have the opportunity now for doing the only thing 
which it seems to a foreigner is necessary for the future 
prosperity of this country; and I feel sure that the con¬ 
structive, practical wisdom running in your English blood 
will lead you to do it. Pennsylvania has put her hand to 
this plough; beware of the men who either by their voices 
or by their votes would make her look back. 

NECESSITY FOR CONTINUING AND PERFECTING THE WORK. 

The world has really become a very small place; we are 
geographically three thousand miles away from France, but 
we are only a fortnight or so away from it in one of the 
longest voyages, when the French make an invasion of our 
industries. 

The electric telegraph and steam navigation are making 
this world too small for a man to find a hiding place in it. 
There is no spot upon this earth, to-day, where a scoundrel 
can hide from the officers of justice. And just in the same 
way that science gives the human race control over the 
world for one thing it gives control for another. 

We are to-day within five minutes of Paris or London, if 
we wish to give an order for goods; and within ten days 
they can be displayed on sale in our warehouses. The 
French, English and German workmen are no longer away 
off in the infinite distance, they are here at our doors. 

Steam navigation and the electric telegraph, which have 
made such near neighbors of all nations, have made it the 
imperative duty of true legislators to develop the technical 
education of America, and thus protect the neglected indus¬ 
tries of the country. 

The opportunities of importation and the speed of the 
ship bring the work of the foreign mechanic to our doors, 
and if we oppose to him only the products of the unskilled 


CONSIDEEED ECONOMICALLY. 


39 


mechanics of America, the country must lose by it. It is 
no longer an issue which can be postponed or avoided 
altogether; whether we like it or not, it is being tried every 
day, everywhere, in all the United States of America. 

It seems to me that our duty as a measure of economy, 
our duty to the youth of this country, who have been in 
this matter shamefully neglected, our duty to the workmen 
who have no opportunity for technical education, and who 
are obliged to take inferior positions through want of skill, 
and earn lower wages in consequence,— our duty, in view 
of all these considerations, it seems to me, is to do some¬ 
thing in this matter, and something proportioned to the 
magnitude of the evils which have to be remedied. 

There is another phase of the question which I think is 
an important one, economically, and that is, what are we 
doing for the educational improvement and occupation of 
the leisure time of our youths, after they have (as the 
phrase goes) completed their education in the grammar 
schools of the country ? 

Where are the evening schools and Art or Science schools 
which should take them up and make them useful, produc¬ 
tive and able men and women ? 

As a general thing they do not exist. As soon as our 
boys and girls, who have cost us so much care, and thought, 
and anxiety, have acquired a very small amount of general 
education, which only prepares them to acquire a technical 
one, they are educationally abandoned. 

A PLEA FOE THE WOEKING MAN. 

I must here make a plea for the mechanic, appealing to 
public responsibility. My sympathies are very strongly 
with that young American mechanic who at sixteen years 
of age is educationally dropped into the gutter, and left to 
graduate in the school of the world, the flesh and the devil. 
We can do better for him than that, and if for him, then 


40 


INDUSTRIAL ART EDUCATION, 


also for society. Put into his hands a pencil and a pair of 
compasses, and teach him the intelligent use of both before 
he leaves the day school. Afterwards, utilize his spare time 
in the evenings, by employing the power already acquired 
in drawing, in the study of Art and Science applied to his 
own branch of industry, and we shall find that by so doing 
we shall not only assist him in heading off, or crowding 
out, some of the temptations to wrong and harm to which 
persons of his age are peculiarly liable, but shall also 
put into his hands the lever by which he can move the 
world. 

In other countries, where apprenticeships exist, and 
where great excellence in industry has been arrived at, it is 
a very common thing to record in the articles of appren¬ 
ticeship an agreement that a young man or young woman 
shall attend, in the evening, schools of Art and Science It 
is a common thing for an employer to give higher wages to 
youths attending such schools, than to those who do not so 
attend, on the ground that they are more competent and 
more profitable workmen. 

If we do not take charge of the technical and secondary 
education of our youths, we are in the first place inflicting 
upon them an unnecessary temptation, difficulty, or hard¬ 
ship, through want of occupation in their spare time ; and 
we are bringing them up in such a way that they must be 
inferior in the productive industries to the workmen of 
other countries; and, economically, we are letting run to 
waste just that faculty in the human being which makes 
him different from and superior to every other animal — 
the faculty of Art and design. 

As I have said before, and let me here emphasize it, if 
we employ people simply for their brute force, we can 
employ horses and mules to much greater advantage; but 
if we employ people in the application of their acquired 
skill, we multiply their productive power a hundred-fold. 


CONSIDERED ECONOMICALLY. 


41 


A PERSONAL EXPLANATION. 

Let me say, finally, that I have endeavored to speak on 
this matter from an unprejudiced point of view, looking our 
circumstances impartially in the face; and here a little per¬ 
sonal explanation may suitably be made. I have spoken 
plainly, as a teacher is accustomed to speak from education 
and habit, and some of you may think I have not done 
justice to American Industrial Art, while I have overesti¬ 
mated that of the country in which I was born, England. 
If you think so, I would answer that, just now, I am in a 
better position to take a perfectly impartial and disinterested 
view of this subject than I ever was before, or ever hope to 
be again ; or than any man who is either an American or an 
Englishman could take, for, at the present time, I am neither 
English nor American. To-day, I am a man without a coun¬ 
try, having ceased to be a subject of Her Majesty Queen Vic¬ 
toria— God bless her!—whilst I am not yet permitted to 
become a citizen of the United States. I have not yet been 
allowed to complete certain forms and ceremonies which 
would entitle me to American citizenship. The only circum¬ 
stance which gives me the right to speak, because it is the 
only way in which my existence is recognized by this coun¬ 
try, is that I have already been initiated into one of the first 
mysteries of citizenship, an instalment of my final privileges. 
I enjoy the inalienable right of paying taxes, which was 
immediately and ungrudgingly conferred upon me without 
the formality of taking out any papers. 

Though I may not vote, I am permitted to speak, and, 
being a man without a country, ought to be able to speak 
without unduly waving either the Stars and Stripes or the 
Union Jack; and I pledge you my honor, I have tried to 
forget both and yet be faithful to both. I am also the 
father of American children as well as English children, and 
ought to be permitted to say something about how my 
share of the taxes should be expended in their education. 


4 


42 


INDUSTRIAL ART EDUCATION. 


I demand the same opportunities of education for them, 
in common with all other children in the country, as would 
have been available for them had they been born in, or con¬ 
tinued to live in any other country than America; and 
that is the opportunity to be trained to useful, practical 
lives, by industrial education, something they cannot obtain 
here now. As a prospective citizen of the United States, 
and having come here, not to spy out the land and go away 
and misrepresent it, but having come here to stay, and 
therefore to take my share of the responsibility and do my 
share of the work that has to be incurred and done by a 
civilized society, I presumed on your invitation to say what 
I have now said, and say it without fear as without favor. 

The Pilgrim Fathers and William Penn are now regarded 
as having been good, average American citizens, though 
they were by birth my fellow-countrymen, not yours; and 
with such examples before me, I hope, some day, that as I 
have followed in their footsteps, by leaving the old home 
and friends, to raise one standard of civilization here, I 
may also eventually succeed in doing work that will en¬ 
title me to be regarded as a good American citizen, as they 
each and all were. 


CONCLUSION. 

• 

Being a professional judge of such matters, I wish to put 
it on record that you have the material here in the people, 
in the soil which needs cultivation, in the products of the 
soil which are at your doors waiting to be developed into 
industrial wealth, and m the example of a secondary educa- 

tion which has been tried and proved successful elsewhere_ 

in all these you have materials'for success which ought to 
make you eager and anxious to do what you are now asked 
to do. And then, gentlemen, I hope the time will come 
when this country will no longer be wholly engaged in the 
struggle for existence, or in producing the raw materials 


CONSIDERED ECONOMICALLY. 


43 


of the Arts only, but will be a republic of Art and Science, 
like the Medieval republics, and I shall be able to say that 
as Ifhave out-lived the reign of the foreign workman in my 
native country, so I have out-lived it in this, my adopted 
country; and I know I shall be enabled to say that, by such 
action alone as you are now asked to take. (Applause.) 

Your Excellency, Senators and Representatives, I thank 
you for your courteous attention, and sincerely hope that I 
may not have spoken in vain. 


RESOLUTION OF THANKS. 

Senator Huhn: Mr. Chairman, I think it eminently ap¬ 
propriate that we should pass a resolution of thanks to 
Professor Walter Smith, for his able and interesting address 
on Industrial Art Education, and I therefore move you a 
vote of thanks of this meeting to Professor Smith, for that 
purpose. 

Mr. Huhn’s motion was carried unanimously, with ap¬ 
plause. 

The meeting then adjourned. 
















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